The transfer of the memory controller to central processors, which occurred many years ago, determined the rhythm of improvement in results in extreme overclocking of RAM. As a rule, now a new wave of records occurs after the release of central processors of a new generation; after a few weeks the situation stabilizes, and the established records then wait for months to be updated. The situation developed similarly after the release of Intel Coffee Lake Refresh processors last fall. The manufacturing company even organized events for overclockers that preceded the official announcement of the new platform in order to share fresh data on the overclocking potential of processors of this family after the information embargo was lifted.
Previous memory overclocking, corresponding to the DDR4-5609 mode, has been maintained since mid-January of this year. This month, Intel Coffee Lake Refresh processors with the new R0 stepping should go on sale, which can change the balance of power in the field of extreme memory overclocking, but until this happens, overclocking experts are using production copies and engineering samples of processors of the previous P0 stepping.
An anonymous group of enthusiasts, who were invited by ADATA to promote their memory modules, did the same. On their second attempt, they managed to surpass the January record for overclocking RAM, and now the best result corresponds to the mode with delay values ββ31-31-31-46-3. In memory overclocking, low latencies rarely go hand in hand with high resulting frequencies. In addition, to increase system stability during overclocking, enthusiasts usually use a single memory module, and it is better to have DDR4 chips located on only one side. Accordingly, they try to minimize the number of active memory channels, so they leave a single module in the DIMM slot.
During the experiment, a group of Taiwanese overclockers used the MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC motherboard based on the Intel Z390 chipset, and an engineering sample of the Core i9-9900K processor with P0 stepping was installed in it. This processor was cooled with liquid nitrogen. As a rule, in such cases, the memory module is also cooled with liquid nitrogen, for which an elongated copper reservoir is installed on it, but a complete picture of the conditions of this experiment cannot be obtained from the available description.
Liquid nitrogen allows you to cool computer components very well, but they cannot operate at extreme conditions for a long time. However, sometimes a few seconds of working at maximum capacity are enough to register a record in specialized databases. If a system of the specified configuration were used to overclock paired memory modules, the resulting frequency would certainly be lower. We will certainly find out in the coming weeks whether new 7nm AMD processors or Intel Coffee Lake Refresh processors with a new stepping will be able to change the balance of power in memory overclocking.
Source: 3dnews.ru